Aims and Issues

The initial phase of the study consisted of a series of interviews with
about ten entrepreneurs in Värmland in the field of nature tourism
and with a number of municipal officials who were interested in developing
this form of tourism. These interviews took place in the spring of 1989
and the objective was collect some material in order to start an analysis
of nature tourism in Värmland. Gradually, my area of interest was
extended to cover the growing field of culture tourism in the region.

The object of the study was to analyse these social phenomena from a
sociological standpoint, which meant they should be related to a social
context and changes in this context. Regional nature and culture tourism
which aims at transforming nature and culture into tourist products' becomes
intelligible if we place it in a broader tourist and social context.

The analysis presented in this thesis should be seen as a first step
in a process since more empirical material and greater theoretical precision
are needed if we are to study tourism as a social phenomenon in a sufficiently
scientific manner. The thesis is thus only 'a tentative sociological analysis'.

Reflections on Methodology and Methods

The methodological points of departure for the study largely derive
from discovery and reflection; discovery because tourism, particularly
nature and culture tourism, is a social phenomenon which has to be scientifically
described, and reflection because a major feature of this study is the
conscious effort to exercise systematic control over the various choices
that are made in the attempt to capture the phenomenon theoretically and
empirically.

The statistical data used to describe the structure and significance
of Swedish tourism are primarily drawn from the structural plans of the
former Swedish Tourist Board. It should be noted that there are shortcomings
in the tourist statistics partly because of the complex and extremely fragmentary
nature of the tourist industry and partly because of the practical difficulties
in collecting statistics.

The historical sources used are purely secondary. This is sufficient
since the main aim is merely to understand present-day tourism in the light
of the history of tourism and travel.

This study has been conducted very much along the lines of Pierre Bourdieu's
epistemological programme which entails conquering, constructing and confirming
sociological facts. The work has involved a scientific conquest of the
field of tourism and the construction of fruitful scientific concepts for
analysing tourism. The collection of data on tourism has been used as a
tool in the processes of conquest and construction rather than as a means
of confirming hypotheses.

What Is Tourism?

I define tourism in three different ways: one semiotic, one in terms
of social science theory and one in politico-administrative terms.

Etymologically the word tourism is derived from the educational journeys
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 'le Grand Tour', where the
term 'tour' designates a journey from one's hometown to another place and
back. In tourism research and the debate on tourism the term has various
connotations ranging from the negative to the positive. I have attempted
to treat the term in a neutral manner.

In terms of social science theory tourism can be seen as an anti-everyday
activity which may concentrate on what I term either educational and self-developing
tourism or on carnival tourism. These two ideal types of tourism can be
practiced either in central places, primarily big cities or on the periphery,
for instance in Värmland's natural and cultural landscape.

The politico-administrative definition shows that tourism is difficult
to operationalize in official statistics, for instance to unambiguously
distinguish recreational tourism. I problematize the concepts of leisure
and recreation, which are often used in these contexts. Activities which
are not normally considered as part of leisure time may be significant
touristic activities, such as staying at a hotel, eating in a restaurant
or travelling to a big city to shop. Leisure away from home covers more
than leisure at home. Recreation is an ambiguous concept which is closely
related to the instrumental, disciplinary view that the authorities have
of people's leisure time. As it is generally used, it excludes many activities
which form part of carnival or pleasure tourism.

The History of Tourism

A study of the history of tourism shows that tourism is a social product
which is intertwined with other aspects of social development. The embryonic
analysis presented here primarily deals with travel and tourism in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries where modern tourism has its roots.
The historical survey considers three aspects: which class or classes were
of major importance for the shaping of tourism, what were the tourist attractions
and what means of transport were used. Nineteenth and twentieth century
tourism was very much a middle-class phenomenon. Tourism among the working
class started in the period between the wars and became particularly significant
in the post-war period. Major attractions in both centuries have been coastal
and mountain regions and the culture of Dalecarlia. Writer and artist milieus
have also been very attractive. Charter tourism has become important since
World War II. At first it was an escape from the urban environment, but
today big city tourism is more prominent. The history of modern tourism
is very closely linked with developments in transportation; the steamer
and the steam locomotive shaped tourism in the nineteenth century and the
cycle, car and aeroplane in the twentieth. The last two have played a decisive
role since the war.

Tourism - a Major Industry

Available statistics show that present-day tourism is a major industry,
both internationally, nationally and regionally. It is one of the world's
biggest industries as regards numbers employed. Its turnover represents
about 6% of world trade and the future looks very bright. In Sweden, the
turnover was about 3% of the BNP in the early 1990s. The industry employs
about 5% of the total workforce. In Värmland tourism provides employment
equivalent to somewhere between 2000-3000 man years. The net surplus in
the early nineties was estimated at more than 400 MSEK. The impact of tourism
differs from municipality to municipality. In some Värmland municipalities,
such as Sunne, Torsby, Munkfors and Årjäng, tourism is a relatively
significant economic factor.

A scrutiny of the former Swedish Tourist Board's structural plans for
1987, 1989 and 1990 revealed that the Swedes are very much a nation of
tourists but that Sweden is not a major tourist country as regards the
number of foreign tourists. The Germans, Dutch, English and Americans dominate.
The Swedes themselves travel abroad a great deal, particularly in Scandinavia.
Germany, Spain, Austria and Greece are also major tourist goals. The main
reasons for travelling abroad are 'to relax', 'to meet friends and relatives'
and 'for entertainment/pleasure'.

Swedes make about 100 million domestic journeys per year which entail
an overnight stay and are longer than 200 km. 75% of these are leisure
trips. The most common reasons for leisure trips with overnight stays are
'to visit friends and relatives', 'to visit one's holiday cottage' and
'to get peace and quiet/ relaxation'. The predominant means of transport
is the private car. Leisure trips without overnight stays are also of major
economic importance for the industry since they are mainly shopping and
pleasure trips. Business journeys and official journeys, both those with
or without an overnight stay, are also of considerable economic importance
since the people travelling often use more expensive types of transport
and accommodation. The tourist industry has five components; restaurants,
accommodation, transport, distribution, and activities and events. It largely
consists of small enterprises, the big companies being mainly in transport,
accommodation and distribution. The restaurant trade is the largest component
both as regards turnover and employment.

The growing economic significance of the tourist industry has led to
an increase in its political significance. Tourism policies have three
main objectives: a recreational policy one, a currency policy one, and
a regional and employment policy one. Briefly, the first is to enable as
many people as possible to enjoy tourism, the second to attempt to improve
the balance of payments and the third to achieve a regional balance in
Sweden and to improve the level of employment, particularly in rural areas.

It is doubtful whether any of the objectives have been attained. There
are many people who never make tourist trips. 'Sweden is bleeding tourist
currency'. The regional policy objective is considered more closely in
this study, primarily from a Värmland perspective. From a number of
official reports and from political and administrative decisions at both
national and regional level, it is clear that tourism has become increasingly
important for achieving a regional balance in the country and in the various
regions. During the 1980s and 1990s tourism policy has undergone a re-orientation,
focusing increasingly on commercial goals, a policy pursued by the right-of-centre
political parties in the face of opposition from those left of centre.
Among other things this has led to the Swedish Tourist Board being replaced
by Next Stop Sweden, primarily a marketing company. At the regional level
in Värmland, the growing emphasis on commercial goals can be seen,
for instance, in the Värmland Tourist Board's wavering between social
and commercial goals and in the fact that many of the municipalities that
are important from a tourism viewpoint are adjusting their tourist activities
to the market in the form of foundations, economic associations and companies.
This is an example of the process referred to in this study as commodification,
which is a major point of discussion in the following more theoretical
sections.

A Sociological Frame of Reference

In this section of the study I set out a sociological frame of reference,
which is then used as a point of departure for understanding tourism. A
survey of the analyses made by two tourism researchers, Jost Krippendorf
and John Urry, shows how valuable it is in theoretical terms to deal with
tourism in relation to the surrounding society.

The major building blocks in present-day society are economic, political,
socio-cultural and socio-material. In line with the materialist approach
to history, I maintain that the economic sphere is the most significant
for the nature of and changes in other social spheres. In this sphere it
is not only material resources that are commodified or commercialized but
also immaterial ones such as tourist attractions. Dominating the modern
welfare state is the opposition between commodification, for instance the
commercialization of experiences of nature and culture, and what I term
decommodification, emphasizing non-commercial goals such as the social
objective of tourism policy of 'tourism for everybody'. The socio-cultural
sphere mainly covers the reproductive everyday and non-everyday, for instance
leisure trips to another place. This sphere is being increasingly affected
by the economy and politics. The socio-material sphere is the man-made
environment, for instance the shape of urban environments and the cultural
landscape. These are of great importance for the nature of tourism and
are in their turn affected by tourism.

In the study I use Scott Lash's and John Urry's theory of the transition
from organized to disorganized capitalism to characterize the changes that
are at present taking place in society. In economic terms the trend is
towards greater commercialization. The service class or the new middle
class is growing in importance. The postmodernist paradigm, which is primarily
distinguished by greater integration between, for instance, elite culture
and popular culture, is having an increasing cultural impact.

As an industry, tourism can be divided, for analytical purposes, into
produc-tion, distribution and consumption. This study only deals with production
and consumption. The actors in these sectors are considered in terms of
both their structural location and their cultural affiliation.

The Productive Sector of the Tourist Industry

In this section the production of tourism is considered from three angles:
what resources are used, in what forms are they used and how are these
forms commodified.

A resource is something which is in demand or for which a demand is
created. The resource is thus related to the social context in which the
demand is created. The national and regional resources which, according
to many of the official plans and reports, are to be exploited are nature
and culture. I use the term nature tourism in this study for activities
involving the commodification of various types of genuine and artificial
natural phenomena, for instance rafting down the Klara river in Värmland
and so-called survival courses. The laws on the use of natural resources
and on environmental protection indicate the areas in Sweden which are
most suitable for this type of tourism, roughly speaking the mountain and
coastal regions and along some of the big rivers. The public right of access
is a major resource in this context. The Swedish climate produces a two-season
tourism model, summer tourism and winter tourism. On the basis of the social-science
definition of culture, where virtually all collective consciousness is
termed culture, all tourism with this orientation should be termed culture
tourism. However, established culture tourism takes a narrower view, concentrating
on the so-called aesthetic elite culture and the so-called cultural heritage.

It is clear that the form of production for both national and regional
nature and culture tourism is small-scale. In fact, it is very similar
to what is often termed handicraft production, work which concentrates
on a specific assignment where so-called silent knowledge plays a major
role, especially in the contact with tourists. The producers very much
live for their work. It seems to be the case that entrepreneurs from outside
are better able to see the opportunities for exploitation, particularly
in the local landscape.

Using a concrete example, a company producing rafting voyages down the
Klara river in Värmland, I discuss the theoretical significance of
commodifica-tion, where utility value, particularly the psychological and
social value of natural and cultural experiences, is transformed into exchange
value, a monetary price, and where selling can be distinguished from buying.
The exchange process may be an independent process with the traders primarily
interested in the process itself. Small-scale producers seem to make every
effort to avoid becoming traders to any extent.

With concrete projects in Sweden and in Värmland as a point of
departure, I discuss the commodification of culture in culture tourism,
in recent years an expanding field. Culture tourism differs from nature
tourism in that it is more frequently arranged by official institutions
and organizations, such as county authorities, museums and local folklore
societies.

The Life-Style Producing Tourism Consumer

This section is more concerned with discovery and hypothesis than the
rest of the study. The overarching aim is to develop a fruitful sociological
point of departure for analysing present-day tourism consumption.

A survey of Swedish data on tourism reveals distinct differences between
different socio-demographic groups. Somewhat over 30 % of the population
of Sweden between the ages of 16 and 74 reported in 1990/91 that they had
not made a holiday trip lasting more than a week during the past year,
more than 50% said they had not been abroad. Women more tourist trips than
men; students and those gainfully employed more than pensioners; the better
educated more than those less educated; households without children or
with older children more than households with young children; urban residents
more than rural residents; upper classes more than lower classes.

In this part of the study I hypothesize that there are class differences
as regards the consumption of tourism. The middle class is more interested
in what was earlier termed educational and self-developing tourism whereas
the working class prefers carnival tourism. What is here termed the new
middle class, where the so-called welfare-state professionals and the market
professionals are prominent groups, seem more to unite the two forms of
tourism. British studies suggest that it is people in this class that are
the main consumers of the products of nature and culture tourism. It is
reasonable to assume that the situation is similar in Sweden. According
to many present-day sociological consumer researchers, it is primarily
the new middle class that forms the new consumer society, which should
also be true of the consumption of tourism.

This class defines what is good taste and what signs should be used
to indicate the lifestyle one wishes to be seen as belonging to. It is
also this class that shapes the consumption which will satisfy the need
for relaxation from the boredom of work and everyday life. Consumption
occurs in special socio-material space in society , for instance at tourist
resorts and in the city of big cities, and this has an impact on the spatial
design of society.

The cultural paradigm which many researchers see as justifying the current
consumer culture is what is termed postmodernism. The main feature of this
paradigm is the integration between different social spheres, for instance
between elite culture and popular culture and between various sectors of
' the cultural economy'. Signs, primarily figurative, and code systems
play an increasingly important role in social life. In some cases they
form a hyperreal world which constitutes a reality in itself.

In the study the theoretical analyses of consumer culture and postmodernism
are formed and exemplified by means of two different travelogues and a
number of concrete examples from the tourist industry in Värmland.

The Consequences of Tourism

This section begins with a brief survey of what is meant in theoretical
terms by consequences, in particular unintentional consequences, functional
or dysfunctional feedback consequences, and functional or dysfunctional
consequences for the survival of the system. When it comes to tourism,
all these types of consequences, including unintentional and dysfunctional
environmental consequences are of importanc